EU prepares a trade chokehold for Ukraine

The decision to impose higher duties on Ukrainian imports is linked to plans to end the special duty-free regime, which was introduced in 2022 after a full-scale invasion by Russia, the Financial Times has reported.

According to them, this decision was taken after Poland initiated a defense of EU farmers.

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The EU has an existing free trade agreement with Ukraine, but temporarily removed residual duties after Russia's invasion in 2022. Those arrangements expire on June 6, and the EU plans to replace them with “transitional arrangements” while the two sides update the common trade agreement.

Informed diplomats noted that the transitional proposal recently presented to EU member states will be significantly reduced - in particular, quotas on duty-free imports of agricultural products that are critical to Ukrainian farmers and the budget.

When the duty-free regime was introduced in 2022, it applied to Ukrainian products - poultry, wheat and sugar, most of which were transported through EU countries to Africa and Asia.

Farmers and politicians in Poland, France and other EU countries soon blamed Ukrainian exports for lower domestic prices. The issue became dominant in Polish politics.

Diplomats say that on the eve of the presidential election, Warsaw asked the European Commission to postpone trade talks with Kiev to reduce the chances of victory for nationalist opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki.

A European Commission spokesman confirmed that the arrangements would not be renewed as we are currently working on the renegotiation of the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement.

“The Commission is also considering possible transitional measures if the negotiations are not finalized and applied by June 6,” he added.

Two EU diplomats said the European Commission's transitional measures would involve splitting the annual duty-free quota into 12 monthly installments to reduce imports during the negotiation period.

Corn, sugar, honey and poultry would be most affected, they said. The annual quota for corn will drop from 4.7 million tons to 650,000 tons. Poultry - from 57.1 thousand to 40 thousand tons, and sugar - from 109 thousand to 40.7 thousand tons.

Chairman of the Committee on Trade of the European Parliament Bernd Lange believes that this is really a very bad signal for Ukraine.

Photo: Ukrpravda.

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